The Trump administration has set its sights on the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (Noaa), the US’s pre-eminent climate research agency, with significant cuts and a political crackdown on climate science. As Trump takes aim at the agency, the impact is likely to be felt across the US and around the world.
Noaa provides essential resources to the public and has helped make the US a scientific leader internationally. Operating 18 satellites and 15 research and survey ships, the agency’s scientists, engineers and policy experts issue forecasts relied on by aviation, agriculture and fishing industries; ocean floor mapping depended upon for shipping; advises on species protection, and increasingly precise and accurate modeling on what to expect as climate crisis unfolds.
Noaa is also a primary resource for emergency managers and the public during extreme weather events and natural disasters when fast, accurate information matters most.
Experts and officials have warned that dismantling and defunding the agency will come with severe consequences that will only increase as the world heats.
“Just about every component of the agency contributes to our understanding of the climate,” said Dr Craig McLean, the former director of Noaa research, who served the agency for four decades before retiring in 2022. “Does that paint a big target on Noaa? Absolutely,” he said, adding that this would be “damaging to the country’s economic outlook, the well being, the food security, and the general security of the public”.
The administration began laying the groundwork with key changes at the agency in recent weeks, according to staffers and contractors who spoke to the Guardian under the condition of anonymity for fear of reprisal.
The employees said staff at the agency has been instructed to prepare for severe reductions in staffing; the administration has indicated the agency’s budget may be cut by roughly a third. Projects focused on expanding inclusion and equity within the scope of the work including those that sought to bring in more tribal expertise, have ground to a halt.
Representatives from the so-called “department of government efficiency” (Doge) breezed past security at headquarters earlier this month, and demanded access to IT systems. Staff was also instructed to turn over editorial control of intranet sites to Doge, in emails that have been reviewed by the Guardian.
Workers have been asked to compile databases of contracts and grants that contain references to environmental policy or particular key words, including “climate change”, “diversity”, and “environmental agreement”, for further evaluation. The administration, staffers said, is evaluating whether documents – which range from scientific studies to international policy – comply with Trump’s executive orders.
Like other federal employees, staffers were also instructed to send emails to their supervisors detailing five things they achieved in the previous week. Even though the US government’s human resources office countered Musk’s claims that a failure to send the emails would be regarded as a resignation, Noaa employees have been asked by officials at the Department of Commerce, which oversees the agency, to send them.
“We are waiting for the ax to drop,” said a worker at the agency. Some agency leaders have been put on administrative leave, she added, and others were asked to pull together lists of probationary employees, a categorization that applies to new hires or those moved or promoted into new positions – roughly 10% of the agency’s workforce.
“For an administration so focused on economic outcomes,” she added, “Trump’s math on this is all wrong.”
Officials who have worked at the top levels of Noaa spoke about its essential mission and how close to the edge it already operates, hampered by small budgets and limited staffing.
“The agency is out-demanded given the resources made available,” McLean said. “If we start taking people away that has a further exacerbating effect. We are barely able to keep our heads above water at this point.”
Even with a tight budget, Noaa has played a pivotal role in public safety, providing key insights and forecasts relied upon by a vast array of communities and industries, from weather shifts that could impact crop schedules, to emergency response preparation when hurricanes are brewing or fire conditions are aligning. The agency operates warning systems for tsunamis, monitors seafood supply chains and provides ocean data needed for safe shipping and port operators.
“Noaa is a science agency but it also delivers services directly to the American people and in some sense to the global community,” said Dr Andrew Rosenberg, former deputy director of Noaa’s National Marine Fisheries Service. “It is extraordinarily difficult to achieve the mission with less people.”
But it’s the mission itself that Trump has called into question. Both in his first term and now in his initial weeks in office, the president has undertaken an anti-science approach, especially when it comes to climate crisis. Project 2025, a policy playbook authored by numerous former Trump officials, calls for “breaking up and downsizing” Noaa due to its work to increase understanding of the crisis.
Claiming the research is “harmful to future US prosperity”, the document’s authors insist Noaa should be disbanded, proposing instead to shift functions to the private sector. Plans include appointing leadership that aligns with the administration to “prevent obstructionism”, downsizing offices, and culling regulations, actions that Rosenberg and McLean said would prove disastrous for the public that relies on Noaa.
“My fear is that they will gut the work,” McLean said of the administration, likening Doge employees to car mechanics trying to perform open heart surgery. “They don’t know what they are doing – they just want to bring in a hammer and smash it.”
Already the US has lost its position as a scientific leader following the president’s withdrawal from international accords, including the Paris climate agreement. Calls for privatising Noaa’s vast offerings fail to take into account how much businesses, including those that offer weather forecasts, depend on Noaa data and the satellites and models it operates.
“We have the largest, most sophisticated science enterprise in the world,” Rosenberg said. “And we are going to throw it away because somebody doesn’t like the word climate change?”
Article by:Source: Gabrielle Canon
